Oh, how convenient! Greg Stumbo all the sudden cares about higher education. In all of my years serving in the General Assembly, I cannot recall a more depressing time for higher education than last week. [Floyd County Times]

After sweating through the second straight year that earned the title of hottest year on record, new research from the Center for American Progress Action Fund finds that 24 governors and attorneys general publicly deny the reality of climate change. [ThinkProgress]

Matt Bevin’s attorney argued in Franklin Circuit Court on Wednesday that Bevin did not reduce appropriations to state universities when he cut their current year funding by 2 percent. [Ronnie Ellis]

A recently disclosed document shows the FBI telling a local police department that the bureau’s covert cell-phone tracking equipment is so secret that any evidence acquired through its use needs to be recreated in some other way before being introduced at trial. [The Intercept]

Federal jurors have returned guilty verdicts in a host of public corruption charges brought against three former Ron Paul presidential campaign aides accused of a secret plot to pay an Iowa state senator $73,000 for his endorsement. [Des Moines Register]

Gotta give Bevin credit for not coming out and endorsing Trump. “At this point, weighing in on who I’m going to vote for, I think is a mistake for me or any other person,” said Gov. Matt Bevin. [WDRB]

Alan Eller has spent more than a decade trying to convince the Department of Veterans Affairs that his bladder cancer was the result of exposure to Agent Orange almost 50 years ago in Vietnam. [ProPublica]

Kentucky basketball legend Richie Farmer, whose promising political career was derailed by accusations of misusing state money while he was agriculture commissioner, filed for bankruptcy this week as he tries to rebuild his life after serving time in prison. [H-L]

Economies across large swathes of the globe could shrink dramatically by mid-century as fresh water grows scarce due to climate change, the World Bank reported. [HuffPo]

Need cheap mobile phone service? Maybe even for a backup cell phone? I’m talking $6/mo cheap? Use our Ting referral code and we’ll all get a sweet credit. You get $25 — enough for a couple months of service to determine whether you like it. Both CDMA and GSM options. For worriers: no, you don’t get identified to us if you use our link… so please consider letting us know if you do! [Ting]

Ting not your thing? Want to be on the AT&T network with unlimited talk and text and cheap data? Join Cricket and you’ll get a $25 referral credit, $50 port-in credit and another $50 if you’re leaving T-Mobile. [Cricket]

U.S. Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz talks about the future of coal during a meeting with the Herald-Leader editorial board on Thursday, April 21, 2016. [More H-L]

Two suicide car bombs claimed by Islamic State killed at least 32 people and wounded 75 others in the center of the southern Iraqi city of Samawa on Sunday, police and medics said. [HuffPo]

Wanna see a racist turd burglar white about the removal of a confederate statute? Here you go. It’s a full-on white guy circle jerk of awful. [C-J/AKN]

Democratic presidential front-runner Hillary Clinton won’t give any clues about who she is considering as her running mate, though she said there are many qualified people for the job. [The Hill]

The Richmond Planning and Zoning chose to table three of four items on its agenda for the October Glory at Golden Leaf development property at Pavilion Way until the next work session per the request of Planning and Zoning director Jason Hart. [Richmond Register]

The U.S. military will announce on Friday that has it taken disciplinary action against 16 service members over a deadly Oct. 3 air strike in Afghanistan that destroyed a hospital run by the international medical charity Medecins Sans Frontieres, U.S. officials told Reuters. [Reuters]

Two Boyd County teachers want to transform a bare patch of land and a pond adjacent to Boyd County High School into an outdoor learning center. [Ashland Independent]

Two days after U.S. Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, filed legislation seeking to expedite a hurricane protection plan for Texas, U.S. Rep. Randy Weber, R-Texas, said he expects to introduce a companion bill in the U.S. House in the coming weeks. [ProPublica]

A random drug search at Rowan County Senior High School on Wednesday morning has forced school resource officers and officials to begin investigating at least four separate instances in which canine units picked up an illicit scent. [The Morehead News]

House Republicans threw a temper tantrum over a rule that bans financial advisers from scamming retirees. [ThinkProgress]

They arrived by the busload, four coaches in all, from around the state. Laborers, thousands of them, flooded the south side of the Indiana Statehouse, covering the green lawn with their blue and yellow United Steelworkers signs and t-shirts. [Politico]

House Speaker Greg Stumbo raised concerns Thursday about how Gov. Matt Bevin handled vetoes of several bills approved by the state legislature and indicated he may ask a court to determine if the governor acted properly. [H-L]

Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) vowed to take his fight for the Democratic presidential nomination all the way to the party’s convention in July, promising not to give up even if he continues to trail Hillary Clinton in pledged delegates. [HuffPo]

A federal judge has ruled that Kentucky cannot bar a corporation from contributing to political campaigns while no such restrictions apply to other organizations such as labor unions. [H-L]

Stagnant pay for many Americans is already a defining issue of this year’s populism-filled presidential election. But add in the rising cost of living, and the picture is even bleaker. [HuffPo]

If anyone is claiming that they’re surprised Tim Longmeyer took part in this alleged bribery corruption scheme, consider everything they say with a grain of salt. Being nice doesn’t mean you’re not corrupt. Just like being an asshole doesn’t mean you’re a terrible person. Bill Ryan is hardly the posterboy for integrity. And at least two of the people commenting in this story didn’t have nice things to say about Tim when they spoke to me. [C-J/AKN]

The court’s 4-to-4 tie on an important labor case gave Democrats a rare double victory. Not only did they get to celebrate the union win made possible by the result, they also got a fresh opportunity to remind Americans that the stalemate over the vacancy will limit the court’s ability to act. [NY Times]

While opinions on who to blame for this year’s Spoonbread Festival being canceled varied, locals were pretty unanimous on one thing — they are sad to see it go. [Richmond Register]

LaToya Fowlkes is standing outside rent court in Baltimore. A judge has just ruled that Fowlkes has to pay her landlord $4,900 in rent and fees despite her complaints that the house has leaky water pipes, chipped paint, rodents and a huge hole in the living room wall. But Fowlkes didn’t notify her landlord of the problems by certified mail — something the judge said she should have done to avoid eviction. [NPR]

There will be no competitive primary for the 98th District state representative race during this cycle. [Ashland Independent]

The US Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) spent $86m (£60m) on a spy plane to be flown in Afghanistan, but it was never used, a government report says. [BBC]

Morehead Utility Plant Board customers could see a slight increase in monthly water and sewer bills after July 1. [The Morehead News]

A lawsuit last week in Canada is seeking to halt a major $15 billion sale of light-armored vehicles to the government of Saudi Arabia, part of a growing international movement to stop arms sales to the Saudi government over its alleged war crimes in Yemen. [The Intercept]

Internal investigations into whether Glasgow Police Department Sgt. Terry Flatt and Officer Tammy Britt violated city policies related to a text-message exchange between them that came to light late last year ended with the same conclusion. [Glasgow Daily Times]

In these first years of the 21st century, we may be witnessing a new world being born inside the hollowed-out shell of the American system. [Bill Moyers]

How… what… REALLY? Humana and Anthem did no due diligence on this guy? Longmeyer didn’t think this through? Steve Beshear’s office okayed this? Those are all questions running through my mind. You’ll see why in just a moment. This lede is so juicy it *has* to be buried.

At this point, I’ll assume you’re familiar with the story of former Personnel Cabinet Secretary Tim Longmeyer’s indictment on Friday. Rather, the most recent Deputy Attorney General’s indictment. Because that’s the job Longmeyer scored from his friend, Attorney General Andy Beshear. The son of his former boss, former Governor Steve Beshear. Andy’s also a mutual friend of Jack Conway, who held Andy’s current job until the end of last year. They’re all apparently tied up together in these fun shenanigans.

Here’s Longmeyer with Marty Meyer, a Democratic Party pal of Tim’s with strong ties to Beshear, Conway and even former Auditor Adam Edelen:

Then click here to catch up on the other tidbits. That story includes a few Conway-specific flashbacks you’ll find fassssssss-uh-natin. Your head will be left spinning once you connect all the dots.

…

Now, who is this mysterious Sam McIntosh of MC Squared? How could such a small-time Democratic consultant score a $2 million contract with Humana and a smaller contract with Anthem? How could he get the ‘in’ to conduct state government-related business for those two mega health insurance corporations? Was this a result of having friends in high places? Was he part of the larger Democratic Party funding scam all along? So. Many. Questions.

What I do know is that you better hold on to your wigs cause this is the beginning of the end for the current Democratic Party regime in Frankfort.

…

We started poking around a bit and uncovered at least one more piece of the McIntosh puzzle. Turns out he wasn’t just conducting telephone surveys and focus groups at his Prosperous Place office in Lexington.

Read the rest after the jump only if you’re okay with something highly inappropriate for work. Move all beverages away from your puter…

I heard on Saturday that Adam Edelen had been busy telling everyone who would listen that MC Squared and Sam McIntosh were at the center of the Tim Longmeyer scandal. As if his own people aren’t directly tied to both Longmeyer AND McIntosh. So it’s no surprise that A Kentucky Newspaper came out with a story making the ID.

But anyone following my Twitter feed (and you should be, as I don’t always publish everything I learn here on Page One) would have learned on Thursday that an indictment was imminent.

Naturally, Democrats in Frankfort were peeved that I’d revealed their dirt again. They started attacking and lobbing veiled threats via campaign consultants and former KDP spokespeople who called me. So I dug in and got people to talk to me.

Seems the Democrats are just as corrupt and horrible today as they were in 2011. They started coming for me then because I was reporting things they didn’t want revealed. So I’ll keep spilling. You’d think they’d learn to stop attacking the messenger and focus on their own shenanigans.

To tease the Dems a bit, here’s what Tom Noland from Humana told me:

The filing of the criminal complaint is the first notice Humana has received of these allegations, and the company intends to conduct a full internal investigation to confirm that there was no wrongdoing on the part of Humana associates.

I got a lot more from others.

But here’s the deal: Everyone from Greg Stumbo to Leslie Combs to Fitz Steele are directly tied to McIntosh. In fact, I hear Stumbo recently planned to meet with McIntosh and Mike Bowling, their mutual friend. But I guess that won’t be happening?

Really, there aren’t more pressing educational issues to tackle instead of pandering in an election year? A Kentucky Republican state senator from London has introduced a bill that he said could have prevented biblical references from being cut from a presentation of A Charlie Brown Christmas at a Johnson County elementary school. [H-L]

French President Francois Hollande has declared what he called “a state of economic emergency” and says it’s time to redefine France’s economic and social model. [HuffPo]

The Bevin administration has shut down an advanced battery research and development center in Lexington that involved cooperation between the University of Kentucky, University of Louisville and a big federal energy lab and automakers. [C-J/AKN]

A federal judge on Tuesday ruled President Obama cannot use executive privilege to keep records on the “fast and furious” gun-tracking program from Congress. [The Hill]

Police departments across Kentucky began outfitting officers with body cameras last year, but don’t expect state troopers to join their ranks anytime soon. [WFPL]

Puerto Rico, struggling to make its debt payments, outlined an increase in its financing gap on Monday, saying it now projects a $16.06 billion hole to fill, cumulatively, over the next five years, an increase of $2.1 billion from a September projection. [Reuters]

The brother of former Kentucky Attorney General Jack Conway will be back in court for a domestic violence charge. [WHAS11]

A Senate subcommittee is looking at waste by a Pentagon task force. It would do well to review the reasons why a major hydroelectric power plant sits unfinished. [ProPublica]

For years there have been calls for more transparency in Kentucky’s retirement systems, especially the system for lawmakers. [Ronnie Ellis]

As state lawmakers consider a medical marijuana bill in Georgia, the measure is getting support from an unexpected source: a conservative Republican state representative. [ThinkProgress]

There are monumental and historic reasons to march on Martin Luther King Jr. Day, but to the crowd who gathered at Union Chuch on Monday despite frigid temperatures, there were modern reasons as well. [Richmond Register]

Former Defense Secretary Robert Gates on Tuesday blasted the Republican field for their rhetoric on destroying the Islamic State. [Politico]

Parent Maggie Draus is concerned about the news that Lexington’s Cassidy Elementary School is one of several in Fayette County likely to get portable classrooms in the fall because of overcrowding. [H-L]

China’s economic growth edged down to 6.8 percent in the final quarter of 2015 as trade and consumer spending weakened, dragging full-year growth to its lowest in 25 years. [HuffPo]

SEARCH

Search for:

TASTY STUFF!

Vegeterian? Vegan? Low-carb? Gluten-free? Body builder? Getting healthy? Vitamins? Herbs? Just want healthier snacks? May be strange to link to but Jake swears by this place & loves tons of products there. How do you think he lost half a person? Plus we get a referral fee if you make a purchase!